TOKYO/ANKARA - Japan Credit Rating Agency (JCR) is getting prepared to exclude Turkey from negative monitoring since Turkish economy has more positive factors than negative ones.
Yoshihiko Tamura, the Turkey analyst of JCR, told the A.A correspondent on Thursday that they could put Turkey into positive monitoring this month by excluding it from negative monitoring due to positive developments in Turkish economy.
The report about Turkey which was prepared by Tamura highlighted positive and negative factors concerning developments in Turkish economy.
The report listed ''progress of IMF-led economic reforms, financial support from IMF, Turkey's geopolitical importance and improving macroeconomic performance'' as positive factors, while it listed ''weak fiscal position and public debt burden, heavy external debt and worsened relationship with the United States after the war in Iraq'' as negative factors.
Stressing that targets of a 5 percent GDP growth and 20 percent of interest rate would be achievable, provided the current trends continued, the report said that however there was a little concern over the prospect for a growth of exports due to the recent appreciation of TL and the sluggish EU economy.
IMF's sixth review's being postponed to October from August due to partial delay in the economic reforms and continuation of expansion in current account deficit were considered as negative factors in the report.
The report recalled that IMF approved the disbursement of the fifth tranche on August 1 and said that attention should be paid to whether the government would achieve its fiscal targets and privatization program, as well as the development of the relationship with the United States.
It noted that the parliament passed the reform package for the EU accession at the end of July.
According to macroeconomic estimations of JCR, the inflation rate will be 20 percent in 2003 and 15 percent in 2004.
Economic growth will be 5 percent in 2003 and 2004.
Ratio of public debt to GNP will be 91.3 percent in 2003 and 83.1 in 2004.
Ratio of current account balance to GDP will be 3.1 percent in 2003 and 3 percent in 2004.
JCR earlier gave B+ rating to Turkey and announced its economic outlook as ''negative''.
(EÖ-AÖ) 21.08.2003